Building Financial Resilience

Personal assets like education or wide social networks, or financial assets such as savings or equity in a business or home are the key to financial resilience and to the ability of families to invest in future generations. Oregonians at all income levels are overwhelmingly “asset poor”, meaning that they could not survive even for a few months without income. For Oregon households with lower incomes the picture is even bleaker.

Since 2009, Neighborhood Partnerships has worked together with the national organization CFED, using their Assets and Opportunity framework to understand both the challenges facing Oregonians and the policy opportunities that promise to improve financial resilience.

In 2012, our focus is on supporting homeowners who are facing foreclosure, and working to develop solutions that to the greatest extent possible keep families in their homes and protect financial assets of families. Through the Oregon Individual Development Account Initiative, we work with partners statewide to start individuals and families along the path to the middle class, by helping them save for higher education, small business ownership, or homeownership. For families in crisis, we work to ensure that basic supports exist to keep families housed, fed, and moving forward.

To learn more about our work, look here for information on the Oregon IDA Initiative, and here for information on the Assets and Opportunities Scorecard.